Will my dish have to be re-positioned when ViaSat 2 becomes active?

At a minimum yes, the ViaSat-2 is at (or will be it hasn't reached final orbit) at 69.9 degrees west over the equator while ViaSat-1 is at 115.1 degrees west (or thereabouts).

ViaSat has yet to say whether there will be other requirements (for example moving from Wildblue to Exede required new equipment. new install, new contract commitment as I recall) but count on that one (repointing) at a minimum.

You will have a choice to switch to ViaSat 2 or remain on ViaSat 1. It is my understanding that if you choose to move to ViaSat 2 when it becomes operational, you will require new equipment, and most likely you will be required to start a new 2 year agreement. I do not plan on switching to ViaSat 2 att this time, I am very pleased with my service right now. I have been on Exede since April 2012, and had the Legacy Wildblue prior to that from April 2008 until I switched to Exede.

I may move as well, further west would leave me trimming a smaller oak tree than the giant sweet gum tree I have to keep trimmed now. I'll have to get my compass out and see if that looks like enough to get off the sweet gum or, if I'd end up trimming both trees. (Said tress are on railroad property but, in the way of my dishes - DTV and Exede or, I'd simply remove them)

Try using http://www.dishpointer.com/ - just estimate azimuth and elevation (and skew if interested) using 70 W Star One, ViaSat-1 is already there in the drop down list provided.

Depending on whether your on east or west coast elevation will increase or decrease - in my case it actually will increase to about 44 degrees from 31 degrees.

The satellite imagery there is at a high enough resolution that I can make out the trees that may be an issue (but with a roof mount it appear I'll clear them when I enable the obstacle checker feature).

Said tress are on railroad property but, in the way of my dishes - DTV and Exede or, I'd simply remove them

Possibly you could mount your dishes on a 30 foot tall or thereabouts structure, much along the lines of a windmill, and, in that manner, have them clear those trees? Or would some local government agency try to prevent you from doing that.

Who is paying for this tower, it needs to be hurricane proof, not affected by extremes of heat or cold, need rather deep concrete footings because this is clay, it rains, it turns to mush.

One fool tried a HAM radio tower out here, a week after he set it up, it rained, one leg sank 24 inches. He fixed that, a month later, hurricane took it out entirely. A satellite dish can catch wind better than that radio antenna and tower did.

For the first 5 years I lived here, house being a new build, I had to jack the foundation up here or there every time it rained until the house finally got settled, now once every 7-10 years, like everyone else out here.

Out here things aren't done with heavy equipment, hand tools and equine power mostly (mules or horses with a block and tackle for heavy lifting.) Ground, even dry won't support a crane or anything bigger than a small farm tractor, wet, even riding lawnmowers sink and get stuck. Took 4 dump truck loads of gravel just to get a safe place to park 2 cars.

Those aren't trees... these are trees (60+ foot tulip poplars, white oak, etc) as I shoot the gap between them ;)

Thankfully, they're downhill and the roof mount (actually a reinforced chimney mount now giving me about 3 more fee of elevation) gets me over the smaller ones - a couple have been taken down since that imagery was captured since they were infringing on my gap ;) .

You talking to me? (in my best De Niro voice). If so, nope, But with Viasat-2, the line of sight shifts about 45 degrees to the south of where it is now just about due south (south is the bottom of the image) and the elevation goes to about 44 or 45 degrees which will clear everything between here and 22000 miles above the Columbia/Brazil border. Right now it's pointed at 22K above the Pacific some 2000 miles west of Ecuador with an elevation of around 31 +/-degrees.

Nope, any further back would put the dish behind the trees closer to the house that prevent a roof mount. just across the railroad form my home is solid trees for the entire length of my property and then some. Only way to that would be to but dish out past pool, then need over 300ft of cable to reach the house - not a good idea.

The view to the South from my house is blocked by 100 foot pine trees. The best option for me would be to mount the dish on the other side of these trees where there is an open view to the South. This would require about 100 foot of coax. Is this feasible and would I need a much better grade of coax usch as LMR400 or LMR600 ? Right now I am running on about 10 foot of coax.

Update - http://www.dishpointer.com/ is a useful tool. I just have to move the dish to the North side of the house to get further away from the tall trees. If I move about 60 feet away from the house then I am 115 feet away from the first tall tree and am at 126 feet and am clearing the 100 foot tree by about 26 feet. I wonder how much taller these pine trees will grow, I imagine at 100 feet they are probably fully grown.

Update - http://www.dishpointer.com/ is a useful tool. I just have to move the dish to the North side of the house to get further away from the tall trees. If I move about 60 feet away from the house then I am 115 feet away from the first tall tree and am at 126 feet and am clearing the 100 foot tree by about 26 feet. I wonder how much taller these pine trees will grow, I imagine at 100 feet they are probably fully grown.

Just to add to this, you may not even need to be pointed at ViaSat 2. It'll take some of the workload off of ViaSat 1 and free up space where you can get the same benefits regardless of what satellite you are pointed at. I'd say later this year when we are closer to being situated in our orbital slot if you are in need of being repointed or anything we'll communicate it to you.

Thanks Brad. Yes I was hoping that I could just leave things as they are. I am lucky to have a visual slot through all these trees to the existing satellite and my dish is attached to the corner of the house right by my office. It all worked out very well.

I've looked over this site, http://www.dishpointer.com/ and have a question... Since the line showed up in green rather than red, does that mean the site considered mountains that might be in the way?? I have a mountain about a mile to the east that is 3,000' high. My house is already on a hill but it might not be enough. I can put the dish on the mountain and relay the data using Ubiquity dishes if necessary. The installer won't enjoy the road getting up there (dirt, steep, cliffs, etc.)(most people get scared and want to go back down). I think the guest house roof can stand one more dish but it's getting cluttered.

I suspect the color is meaningless and the light green was chosen because it typically offers a better contrast against satellite imagery (probably not the best choice if one lives in the desert however). If you check the "show obstacle" line of sight checker option, it will display a red marker that you can position along the green line of sight which will then give you the distance and maximum height of any object at the red marker (not the actually height of the obstacle but rather how tall it would have to be to be an obstacle relative to the height of the dish itself - it's all a manual calculation). Zoom out on the image and place the red marker on the mountain...

I have been thinking about the need to mount my ViaSat2 dish in the front yard to clear my 100 foot trees. I will probably end up with 100 foot of coax between the modem and the dish. I may decide to use LMR 600 for that span. Can someone tell me what frequency the signal between the modem and the TRIA uses. I would like to look at some db loss figures for the different types of coax and is this 50 ohm or 75 ohm coax ?